Noodler's Music Nib Neponset

[mhphoto]

Omg I'm still waiting for this nib and pen.

 

WANT.

[amberleadavis]

No doubt!

[mhphoto]

I sent an email to Dick of Luxury Brands asking if Nathan was still planning on releasing the music nib. He got back to me very quickly. Here's his response:

 

Yes we will be introducing that product soon. However, I cannot give you an exact eta on it.

[Fabienne]

If Nathan ever came up with a killer pen, we are all dead, folks. So far all of his pen offerings have been mean spirited, cheap, and scratchy.* If they ever write nicely out of the box, are reasonably priced, and good looking then the game is over.

 

*Some mean spirited people have accused me of the same things so... YMMV, mine did.

[mhphoto]

If Nathan ever came up with a killer pen, we are all dead, folks. So far all of his pen offerings have been mean spirited, cheap, and scratchy.* If they ever write nicely out of the box, are reasonably priced, and good looking then the game is over.

 

*Some mean spirited people have accused me of the same things so... YMMV, mine did.

 

Wait, so… what? I can understand saying an ink like Bernanke Black is "mean spirited", but what about his pens do you find mean spirited?

Edited November 28, 2013 by mhphoto

[Alex Howard]

In case you all haven't heard, it's out. However, it's kinda' the same ebonite patterns currently used in the Konrad Ebonite Flex pens (e.g. Rebellion Red Ripple, Methuselah) as well as black. Five models altogether. All that waiting for what we saw and wished for and, pfffft she was gone. ($75.00 by the way).

[wadleysf]

In case you all haven't heard, it's out. However, it's kinda' the same ebonite patterns currently used in the Konrad Ebonite Flex pens (e.g. Rebellion Red Ripple, Methuselah) as well as black. Five models altogether. All that waiting for what we saw and wished for and, pfffft she was gone. ($75.00 by the way).

 

At least three online retailers have stock showing now (Wed afternoon); and Brian Goulet is holding a scheduled release at 1pm Eastern time tomorrow, Nov 6th, if you are still looking for one.

[vannesspen]

I still have 1 Jade and 2 Walnut Neponset pens available.

[mhphoto]

The red rebellion model is almost certainly made with the same rod stock as Ranga's red ripple pens.

 

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/540/ITUa1x.jpg

 

Just an observation.

[Alfred24]

Having seen the pre-issue publicity and SBRE Brown's favourable review I decided to purchase a Noodler's Neponset because I was curious to see how a music nib performs. I got the last one from a guy in the US which sells them for a fair price with a free bottle of Noodler's black ink on Ebay. The pen is more expensive than any other Noodler's pen: the complexity of making a music nib probably accounts for that. I received the pen on Tuesday, paid the usual extortionate customs taxes and looked forward to using it. This is a very quick review of the pen I received:

 

Good points

The filling mechanism is a piston, simple but effective and it stores a good amount of ink (which is needed in a pen with flexible nib). The colour of my pen's ebonite body is black, all the cool colours having been sold out but black is not a bad colour for a fountain pen.

The pen is quite large but not too heavy. It is well balanced, quite well constructed and fits together well. The nib (see below) flexes readily.

 

Bad points

The nib - The nib's three tines were badly misaligned on arrival. The middle tine was ahead of the other two. Because of its very small size it is the devil of a job to re-align. Also, for some strange reason, its tip was bigger and taller than the tip of the other two tines making writing, let alone smooth writing, virtually impossible as it protruded upwards and front ways. The right hand tine was bent outwards so that it left a wedge space between itself and the middle tine. When I first used it out of the box it was so scratchy that it actually dug a groove in the paper and cut it.

I have worked on the nib for many hours and I had to use heavy abrasives to reduce the size of tipping material on the middle tine. Now it writes without damaging the paper but it is only of just passable standard.

 

The feed - This is a standard ebonite feed. At first - before cleaning - it did not deliver enough ink to make the pen write. Even now, after I worked on it, the pen often railroads and the ink flow interrupts during flexi writing, even at slow speeds.

 

Summary

A pen of good design completely let down by very poor quality control. Probably manufactured in a hurry to meet heavy demand. This may have been forgivable when Noodler's pens were cheap but it certainly isn't now when this pen costs as much as many far, far superior ones, albeit without music nibs. A great disappointment.

 

Question to Noodler's

Can I get a replacement music nib and feed? If so, where from?

[jmccarty3]

I've been trying to like this pen as well. It's big, it's blue, and it's beautiful. I decided to fill it with Baystate Blue, because I wanted to find a use for that ink, and, well, because Baystate Blue.

 

The pen in huge, which is not a problem for me. Looking at the feed, it's not obvious that it has two channels. The distal end of the feed is rather sharply pointed, with the point overlying one of the nib slits rather than being between them. Not being able to see the feed channels, I have no idea whether this is normal or not.

 

The nib is not particularly wet, and it produces very faint writing if you use a light touch with it, and if you bear down a little harder, the flow increases suddenly, resulting in uneven appearing writing. I'm afraid I don't see much flexibility or line variation in this nib. This particular pen/ink combination feathers and bleeds on Maruman Boston Notebook paper, which is well-behaved with other inks I have tried (with the exception of Iroshizuku Ajisai, of all things). The Neponset/BSB combo behaves better on a Rhodia dotpad, but then most things do. I find that I have to print with it, because a touch light enough for my cursive writing brings out the irregularity in the feed.

 

It's possible that the pen just needs breaking in. I'm tempted to try it with another ink, but that will require an unattractive and lengthy cleanout process. Will let you all know if anything changes, but so far I can't see this as a very useful pen.

[sirach]

I have wondered, not that they have hit the market, are they the same as what I got from the contest? Mine has been flawless. I understand the material used for the barrel is not quite the same.

[jmccarty3]

I was never happy with mine. Sold it to a dealer at the DC show.